


Living With The Unfamiliar

by Nevanna



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Missing Scene, Past Relationship(s), Season/Series 03
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-20 12:02:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22017085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nevanna/pseuds/Nevanna
Summary: Georgie doesn't need to feel fear to recognize a potentially dangerous situation.  She only hopes that Jon's reappearance in her life doesn't bring one down on them.
Relationships: Georgie Barker & Jonathan Sims
Comments: 4
Kudos: 53
Collections: Hurt/Comfort Bingo - Round 10





	Living With The Unfamiliar

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fills the "loss of job/income" square for H/C Bingo. The title is from the song "Take Me As I Am" by the October Project.

Georgie has tea ready for herself and Jon by the time he reappears in the kitchen.

After they left university, she didn’t expect to see or hear from him again. When Melanie spent half the evening ranting about him and the Magnus Institute, Georgie had been ready to vouch for her friend’s strange experience if they contacted her for more information, but she didn’t exactly harbor dreams of reconnecting with her former boyfriend. She certainly could never have predicted that he’d show up at her door while she was editing an episode of _What the Ghost?_ or that he’d come to her for shelter because he’d ended up tangled in some vaguely defined disaster at work, and had no connections outside his spooky job.

Then again, that last part wasn’t much of a surprise.

“Do you want me to tell you that it’ll all work out?” she asks, handing him one of the mugs.

“In what sense? If you mean that you hope they’ll welcome me back into their fold, I’m not so sure that I want that.” Jon’s hair is still damp from the shower, and he rakes it back from his narrow, scarred face with his free hand. “But if you mean that I’ll hopefully be able to walk away from them into a bright and promising future, I’m starting to doubt that that’s even possible.”

Georgie carefully takes the cup from him and sets it on the table until his hands stop trembling.

-

She eventually gives up on platitudes altogether, and instead looks for little ways to make Jon feel useful and welcome: asking him for help with dinner, letting him choose something to watch while they eat, teasing him when he picks a documentary about penguins.

He raises an eyebrow. “And just what would you have chosen?”

“Probably _Jupiter Ascending_ ,” Georgie says without thinking. “Which I’d be surprised if you’ve seen, unless your preferences have radically changed.”

“I’ve certainly heard Tim’s summary of the… plot.” Jon pats his knee as the Admiral saunters by, but the cat pointedly ignores the invitation. “Not that I believed most of it at first.”

“What part did you find unbelievable?” Georgie asks. “The secret destiny as a space princess? The roller-skating canine-human hybrid with angel wings? The bees that could sense royalty?”

“Unfortunately, I’ve become less inclined to dismiss what insects can or cannot do, in science fiction or in reality,” Jon says, almost to himself. “At any rate, the penguins were a recommendation from Martin.”

This isn’t the first time that Georgie has heard Martin’s name. “Well, let’s find out if he has good taste.”

Even as the birds waddle adorably across the screen, she keeps one ear pricked for a knock on the door, signaling the arrival of the police, or whatever creep has been delivering those files that Jon insisted on recording, or... Georgie knows that those aren’t the only two possibilities, in a reality where the dead don’t stay still.

After Melanie told her about the visitation at the Cambridge Military Hospital, Georgie started dreaming again, about opening the door to see Alex Brooke, gray and cold and smelling of formaldehyde, reaching for her with whispered promises. The dreams don’t exactly scare her, but she doesn’t need to feel fear to recognize a dangerous situation, even if she can’t name the danger.

When she glances away from the screen, Jon has settled into the sofa cushions, almost as if he’s actually started to relax. His bare arm brushes Georgie’s, and neither of them inches away. 

This time, if something terrible is on its way, she’ll see it before it hits them. She hopes.

-

“Thanks for listening,” Melanie says, draining her drink.

“Anytime,” Georgie assures her. She’s heard more about the Magnus Institute in the last couple of hours than Jon has told her since he turned up at her flat, but none of it points to a reason why he fled from them with nothing but the clothes on his back. Still, even if Melanie sounded more annoyed than concerned by the gloomy, secretive atmosphere of her new workplace, Georgie knows that she’ll regret it if she doesn’t say, “Listen, if anything about that place starts to seem really weird – if you feel like it’s taking too much from you – you can tell me, all right?”

“At which point you’ll storm the gates and sic your cat on them?” Melanie snorts, but can’t quite hide her smile.

“If that’s what it takes.”

Melanie eases herself off the barstool, careful to put her weight on her uninjured leg. If she’s surprised at how tightly Georgie hugs her, she doesn’t say a word about it. She’s one of the most confident people that Georgie knows, but then again, Alex always acted like she knew what she was doing, too.

At least Jon’s stopped trying to hide how lost he is, no matter how many other secrets he might be keeping.

Georgie returns home to find him sprawled on the sofa, still wearing his glasses. His closed eyes twitch behind the lenses, and as she draws closer, he mumbles something that she can’t hear. The tape recorder sits on the table, and she resists the temptation to hide it somewhere or smash it to bits. She has a pretty good idea of how he’d respond to a move like that, and she doesn’t want to be the last bridge that he burns.

Even so, _one_ of them is going to have to decide how much longer they can continue as they are.

She gently slides the glasses from his face and sets them aside. The Admiral pads in from the bedroom and swishes his tail in contemplation before leaping onto Jon’s chest and curling into a ball of purrs. He lifts his furry chin, and Georgie scratches it obligingly, murmuring, “At least one of us knows what to do.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't seen _Jupiter Ascending_ , rest assured that everything Georgie lists is absolutely in the movie. She couldn't make that up and neither could I.


End file.
